On March 11, Oswego State hosted “Drones: Hunting Humans from the Middle East to the Southern Border,” presented by keynote speaker Naief Yehya.
Yehya has published four novels, multiple essays and written for a few publications in Mexico, Spain and Latin America. He has spent at least 18 years writing about drones, according to Yehya.
Yehya began his address by mentioning the first Gulf War, and saying CNN created a “new type of televised spectacle,” showing the point of view of intelligent missiles, using a certain type of camera. He continued to say the way war was reported changed. As an example, people were no longer shown; rather, military weapons and paraphernalia were shown. He said this reduced war to “entertainment and a type of eye candy.”
“In fact, the military and news channels learned and copied the visual strategies used by ESPN and other sports channels,” Yehya said.
Yehya went on to describe how the use of intelligent missiles began a path to a new era of imperial war, and that drones would become the weapon of choice. The drones began being used outside of war zones.
Yehya said the first drone attack to kill humans was in Yemen, back in 2002. This was not a warzone.
According to Yehya, 95 countries currently have drones being used in some sort of military capacity. Some main uses for these drones would be to keep an eye on drug trafficking, forest fires and border patrol. In many Latin American countries, monitoring drug trafficking would be the main reason they use drones. However, drones have also been used against their original intentions.
In November of 2015, a drone was caught smuggling drugs.
“Now, it is a daily occurrence in some regions of the southern border,” Yehya said. “The specification in the use of border drones came with President Trump’s obsession for building a division wall between Mexico and the U.S.A.”
Another issue brought up was how expensive flying drones can be. According to Yehya, the cost of operation of an unmanned aerial vehicle drone, or WAV drone, was $12,255 per hour in 2013. He also said that, for every 120,939 illegal border crossings, less than 2% were caught via drone, bringing up the question on whether or not it is worth it to invest in these drones. Along with issues of costs, other issues about drone usage have arisen.
“There is a concern about potential conflict of drones. There have already been clashes in South America, Paraguay and Argentina, [which] have accused Brazil of flying drones in their territories without permission,” Yehya said. He added that there have been Colombian drones unauthorized in Venezuela. However, as far as he knew, none of the drones flown over South America were weaponized.
Later in the presentation, Yehya brought up a new and common form of surveillance: smartphones. According to Yehya, “we will become accustomed to a state of permanent surveillance,” and smartphones create “millions of new spying eyes.”
Yehya finished up his presentation by discussing four science fiction films, and how they relate to what people are currently experiencing. The four movies he discussed were “Mad Max 2,” “Alien,” “Blade Runner,” and “The Terminator.”
Yehya walked through the synopsis and impacts of cyborgs and other forms of technology in each film. According to Yehya, these films familiarize the population with these sorts of machines and artificial intelligence.
“They are, for me, the bible of everything that we are going through,” Yehya said.
Photo by William Rogers | The Oswegonian
